


Intuition

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [25]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 18:12:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10668069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Insomnia falls. And Noctis waits for a call. None of them know who he's waiting for.





	Intuition

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159215242827/can-you-imagine-noct-being-completely-broken-by) for an anonymous request.

He didn’t know how Noct did it. He didn’t know how any of them did it, really. Insomnia had been a better home to the three of them than it ever had been to Prompto. They had family there, duties and honor and legacies. Probably more friends than he had in the three of them. And yet, as they looked out over the river that reflected black smoke and city-fires, none of them shed a tear.

They were just quiet. _So quiet_.

They didn’t look like they mourned. Not like Prompto thought they should. They got the call from Cor and they just… moved on. Walked right back the way they came and started driving. The scenery felt like it was going by in slow-motion. There was a stillness inside the Regalia as stagnant as death. Ignis and Gladio spoke back and forth, soft and short arrangements for the night’s lodgings. And in the rearview glances Prompto chanced at Noctis, the prince seemed to grow smaller and smaller at every sound.

His hands were shaking around his mud-spattered phone, staring at the dark screen. As if he was waiting for it to flash with a call. With every new glance at his friend’s reflection, Noct’s eyes grew further and further away, body retreating into the corner of the car. Stare always on his phone. Waiting and panicking the longer he waited. He was curling deeper and deeper into himself and tears sprung forth at the edges of his eyes when Ignis murmured in solemn hope, “Perhaps more made it out alive than they’re saying.”

Prompto’s throat tightened, catching Noctis squeezing his eyes shut and his teeth closing tight to keep himself from crying.

“Noct.”

The prince’s eyes snapped open at Prompto’s voice, the blond turned in his seat to look at him. It brought Ignis’s and Gladio’s attention to him, as well. For a moment, Prompto felt guilty for calling attention to him, eyes wide and wet as they blinked around at the three of them.

“What?” he croaked, expecting that he’d missed a question.

Prompto gulped down on the raw taste balling in his throat at the broken sound of his friend’s voice. He didn’t know how to mend it back into the lively rasp that had comforted him for years. But sometimes it wasn’t about putting the pieces back together. Sometimes it was just about holding onto them. Keeping all those wayward fragments safe. He couldn’t fix him if a piece got lost.

“Waiting for someone?” Prompto asked, nodding at the phone.

Noctis stared at him, the look on his face so fractured with grief that Prompto just wanted to crawl back there and hug him. Every one of the prince’s movements shook. The travel of his eyes from one point to the next, thumbs shivering precariously over the screen of his phone, breaths falling ragged and ruined from bitten lips.

“He’s not gonna call, Noct.”

Gladio’s voice was rough. Short. Eyes hard, looking forward, and not watching the way Noct’s whole body seized in an un-cried sob.

“You heard the Marshall, okay?” Gladio went on, words wrought so tight they started to tremble. “The King is dead. He’s not going to…”

“That’s not who…”

Noctis choked up, shaking his head, and looking anywhere that wasn’t at any of them. They all exchanged a glance in the rearview mirror, confusion shared between all three. They waited in silence while the prince struggled to control his voice.

“I know that, alright? Dad’s… gone. Cor would know that was the truth. But I don’t know what’s worse. Knowing or _not_ knowing.”

His nails dug into the edges of the phone, looking as if it was all the phone’s fault. Like he could blame all of this on that tiny slab of metal and plastic. The car quieted again, Noct’s brows knitting together and eyes rimmed red as he tried not to break apart in front of them. Prompto almost wished that he would. He thought that he might _need_ to. Noctis was wound so tightly, so trapped within his own skin, he was afraid they might lose him if he stayed there.

“Noct…” he coaxed.

“I had someone,” the prince confessed, his eyes pained as he looked up and saw none of them. “Before all of this. For a long time. We didn’t tell anyone because… I don’t even remember. Because we were just happy. We were…”

He stopped, horror plain on his face. “Were.” As if that was all but a confirmation. He took a harsh, sobbing breath before shaking away the past-tense on his tongue.

“I _love_ him, I… I don’t know what I’ll do if…”

He was slipping. The words refused to finish. He glanced fleetingly between the three of them. _Guiltily_ even. For keeping a secret from his closest friends. Prompto wasn’t sure what he was expecting from them. He cringed back into his seat, shoulders curving inward and curling himself over the phone like it was the only safe thing in all the world. Ignis’s cool, calm voice from the driver’s seat presented a different safety.

“Well, I wish it hadn’t taken an invasion for you to finally admit you’ve been seeing someone.”

“You haven’t exactly been subtle,” Gladio grumbled in agreement.

“Come on,” Prompto laughed when Noct’s incredulous stare landed on him. “You think I wouldn’t recognize those lovestruck looks you got at all those texts?”

It bothered Prompto that Noctis’s first instinct about their reaction would be immediate rejection. An infinitesimal part of him also felt his own share of guilt that Noct hadn’t trusted any of them with the existence of a boyfriend. But there was no shame for Noctis. No condemnation. Just love and concern and the irrepressible _want_ to make all the pain go away. He could see it in the others, too. Behind Ignis’s detached eye, always on the road, and beneath Gladio’s brusque cross of the arms barring his heart in his chest.

“We’ll be arriving at the motel shortly,” Ignis spoke up, catching Noctis’s eye in the rearview. “Take as much time as you need when we get there.”

Gladio jerked a nod in agreement when Noctis looked at him, as if for approval. Prompto met his aching eyes as they flitted back to him, a strange mix of gratitude and remorse deep inside of them. Prompto did his best to smile, small though it was. He owed him that much.

“We’ve got you, bud.”


End file.
